Tiffany Trenner-Lyle

Tiffany Trenner-Lyle is 19 years old and has been interning on the Conservative campaign in the key target seat of Hampstead and Kilburn since last October.

My situation is not uncommon. I was educated at my local comprehensives in London. I live with just my mother. I have seen my friends and peers fall into drug abuse, get pregnant, go to prison and re-offend, join “gangs”, leave school with no GCSEs and even murdered. Many of us are scarred by divorce and family breakdown. For all of that, I cannot blame the current Government.

However, one in five of us is 'not in education, employment or training'. We had flat screen TVs dotted around the school but shared photocopied textbooks between two. We were taught in temporary classrooms put up after a fire 25 years ago. Our average grade at GCSE was a D. The gap between us and our privately-educated counterparts is widening. Up to 200,000 sixth formers this year with good grades will miss out on a university place. My contemporaries are dying in Afghanistan. For all of this I know exactly who to blame.

Yet we don't blame Labour because we know nothing better and because we feel guilty: how can we complain when we're told repeatedly how many "opportunities" this Government has given us? We know nothing but a Brown shade of fairness, Harperson's equality, and a Balls education. We've come to love and depend on our captors. A whole generation is clearly suffering from Stockholm Syndrome, direly dependent on the State - and Labour would have us stay this way to ensure we vote for them for years to come.